soli kiani
In my work I refer to my teenage years in Iran as a woman in an isolated, strictly religious and patriarchal country. After years in Vienna, I became more and more aware of the circumstances under which I spent my childhood and youth where I was prescribed the ideology of family, society, school and moral police. Clothing, fabrics and fashion have played a rather dominant role in my life. Fabric was not only clothing, but also a protective cloak, as well as the prison of my identity.
My artistic exploration derives from the depiction of my own life as a woman in Islamic Iran and in democratic Austria, hence the starting point is an autobiographical one. Nevertheless, my goal is to bring social issues to the fore and not to force something on people what I have experienced. The viewer should be allowed to freely forge an opinion through my abstract forms. I do not teach anyone or impose an opinion on anyone. my goal as an artist is to allow debates on all sorts of topics, with which the recipients are confronted through my works, emerging in a broader social and political context.
© Eva Kelety